


Rules of Engagement

by khilari



Category: Shoujo Kakumei Utena | Revolutionary Girl Utena
Genre: Arranged Marriage, M/M, Not to each other, Past Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-15
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-06-28 18:03:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19817635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/khilari/pseuds/khilari
Summary: Touga comes from the kind of family where marriage is a business arrangement. No one expects him to be faithful, so why should it affect his ongoing relationship with Saionji?Saionji is not willing to be the lover of someone else's husband and would rather Touga wasn't so casual about the possibility. Or so hard to push away when he's the one making it necessary.





	1. Chapter 1

They’re lying curled up together, Saionji’s head on Touga’s chest, and Saionji’s already half asleep when Touga says, ‘I’m getting married in October. Do you want to come to the wedding?’

It’s like having a bucket of ice cold acid dumped over him. Saionji shoves himself up with a hand deliberately planted in Touga’s kidneys and says, ‘What the fuck? This is how you’re going to dump me?’

‘Don’t be dramatic, I’m not dumping you. It’s a business thing, no one expects me to be faithful.’

‘I’m not going to be your bit on the side,’ Saionji snarls.

‘What difference does it make?’ says Touga, still infuriatingly casual. ‘There have always been girls. I suppose you’d rather be the wronged wife than the homewrecker?’

Saionji shifts off the futon to sit on the floor instead, legs curled under him and back turned to Touga. Behind him he hears Touga sit up and then there are hands brushing across his shoulders, a mouth pressed against his neck.

‘Come on, Kyouichi,’ Touga murmurs, voice dripping honey. ‘You know you’re the only one I care about.’

It might even be true. Touga wouldn’t have to care about Saionji very much for it to be more than he cares for his legion of girls. A wife though, someone bound to Touga regardless, someone he can’t ignore when he loses interest and who can’t give up on him. It’s going to be different one way or another, whether he makes her hate him or helplessly adore him. Saionji shudders. ‘That girl’s parents should be shot.’

Touga’s hands go still and he removes himself a moment later.

‘I don’t know why you’re being so dramatic about this,’ he says icily. ‘But I’ll talk to you when you’ve calmed down. Good night, Saionji.’

Saionji will have calmed down by the morning, he knows, not because the situation will be any less outrageous but because his anger will have exhausted itself and thoughts like ‘is this really worth losing him over?’ will have had time to creep in, and then he’ll be back in the same trap everyone falls into around Touga. He turns around to where the graceful arch of Touga’s back is turned to him and reaches through a fall of hair to shake his shoulder.

‘You don’t get to just announce you’re getting married and fall asleep without explaining yourself,’ he snaps.

Touga sighs. ‘What is you you need me to explain?’

‘Explain why you thought I’d be okay with this!’

‘It’s a normal thing that people do,’ Touga says. ‘It happens. I’m surprised you weren’t expecting it.’

Saionji lets go of his shoulder and sits back, heat condensing into cold rage. ‘I should have expected it, shouldn’t I? I know you. I know how little you care about anyone but yourself. I should never have expected anything that happened between us to affect the way you live your life.’

Touga rolls back towards him, propping himself up on one elbow. ‘Kyouichi…’

‘But you should have known better than to think I’d sleep with someone else’s husband.’

‘There’s not much I can do about it now,’ Touga says. ‘My family expects it.’

‘I know. I know you’re going to get married whatever I say. But I’m… I can’t be with you.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘I’m breaking up with you.’

‘Kyouichi.’ Touga reaches out to stroke Saionji’s hair back from his face, voice actually sympathetic. ‘You’re upset and I’m sorry, but you don’t have to decide this now.’

Saionji swats at Touga’s hand. Is he really going to have to insist on breaking up while Touga asks him to reconsider? It’s not fair, he’s the wronged party here, shouldn’t he at least get to be mad that he’s losing Touga instead of having to push him away? ‘Do you really think I’m going to change my mind?’

‘If you’re not going to then what harm would some sleep do? You’re not throwing me out in the middle of the night, are you?’

‘You could just take a taxi.’ But no, he’s not. If this had gone differently, if Touga had acted like he had any idea why this might be upsetting, if Saionji had been able to scream and rage at him, then Saionji could have demanded _get out get out get out_ until Touga left. But now? The exhaustion he knew would hamper him tomorrow seems to have come early.

Touga leans further into Saionji’s space, reaching out to rest a hand on his hip. When Saionji frowns at him he says, ‘Just to sleep. There’s no harm in that.’

Saionji lies down and tells himself there’s nothing to do now but sleep anyway.

Not that he does sleep. He watches Touga sleep instead, aware that he isn’t making things any easier for himself. Touga asleep, peaceful, vulnerable and looking strangely innocent, is a much less complicated prospect than Touga awake, and one that can’t help but bring an ache to Saionji’s chest. It’s going to be hard, losing him, but Saionji can’t give way to sorrow yet. Tomorrow morning he’s going to have to break up with Touga all over again.

* * *

Saionji gets up early and starts to gather together the things that are Touga’s, starts to untangle their lives. A phone charger still plugged into the wall, a few books and DVDs on the shelf, records, the record player itself that Touga had just turned up with one day. The expensive hair products in the bathroom he’ll probably want before he leaves, so Saionji lets them be for now. All together it only fills one box.

He’s looking at it folornly when Touga’s arms close around him from behind. ‘Did you get tired of my stuff cluttering your neat apartment?’ Touga asks teasingly.

Saionji stiffens. ‘Touga. You know what I’m doing.’

Touga lets go and walks around to face him, looking somber. ‘Are you really kicking me out entirely?’

‘I made my decision last night.’

‘But we’ll still be friends, won’t we? I always thought this was about more than sex to you.’

‘Of course it was!’

‘Can’t friends visit each other?’

Friends can visit each other, friends can do most of the things he and Touga do. They can sit together watching movies, they can drag one another to museums or the opera, they can share gossip from wildly different worlds. But it’s not as if Saionji can just tell his feelings to stop, that they’re friends now and none of the other feelings Touga brings up in him are allowed. Maybe they should have been friends all along, never been anything else, maybe that would have worked out.

Saionji feels like there’s not a right answer but a wrong one, the one Touga’s waiting for. It would be so much easier if he could be sure this was only manipulation, just Touga trying to put Saionji in the wrong. That no part of Touga was wondering, behind that watchful gaze, what Saionji had really kept him around for, what he’d really wanted when he’d let Touga crawl into his bed at 2 a.m. and simply made him breakfast in the morning.

‘It wasn’t just sex,’ Saionji says stiffly. ‘But it wasn’t friendship either.’

It’s not the answer Touga expected, Saionji thinks, but still one he can work with. He softens slightly, not in surrender but in invitation. ‘What was it?’ he asks, gently.

Saionji can’t meet Touga’s eyes as he answers. ‘I love you. I love you and I need you to _go._ ’ He can feel tears standing in his eyes, it’s only a matter of time until they spill over. ‘Please, just get dressed and get _out_.’

There’s nowhere to really retreat to inside Saionji’s apartment, but he goes to the kitchen and hopes putting a screen door between them will at least make his point. Normally he’d leave the apartment itself if Touga got him into this kind of state, but today ceding ground would be a bad idea. He’s sure he’d come back back to find Touga still waiting for him. He braces one arm on the countertop and rubs at his eyes with the other, waiting with shuddering tension that goes out of him all at once as he hears the pump for the shower start up.

Touga knocks on the door once he’s done showering but Saionji, trembling with barely suppressed sobs, doesn’t answer. He hears Touga moving around outside, things being dropped into the box, and then slow footsteps and the click of the front door. He holds his breath for a few moments, as if it might be a trick and Touga might not really be gone after all. Then, hearing only silence, he finally lets himself cry.

* * *

Saionji dries his eyes, eats breakfast, and goes to his boring office job in his boring office. He’s not friends with his co-workers. For one thing he’s not an approachable person, for another most of his life outside of work revolves around either hobbies they don’t share, or Touga who he can’t talk about. He’s no better than Touga, really, is he? Trying to build a life with someone without it affecting the other parts of his life, the parts people might see. Maybe their relationship lasted so long because they’re both so bad at connecting with the rest of the world. He can’t make friends and Touga can’t keep them.

The boss’s PA stops by midmorning to drop off some paperwork and maybe some of Saionji’s feelings are showing on his face because she pauses and says, ‘Is everything all right, Saionji-san?’

‘My boyfriend’s getting married.’ The words spill out unexpectedly, fuelled by the anger he’s been gradually building up against himself as he broods on his own failings. _Let_ them look down on him. They probably do already.

‘Oh.’ Shock crosses her face and he’s not sure whether it’s because he had a boyfriend or because he’s saying so. ‘I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.’

‘Well, I did.’

‘Was, um.’ She’s poised like a startled deer, unsure how to leave this conversation politely and desperately wanting to. ‘Was he nice?’

‘No.’ Saionji scowls and takes the papers from her. ‘Thank you. I’ll work on this.’

She takes the cue and leaves as fast as possible without fleeing. The gossip’s probably going to be all over the office by lunchtime. Saionji doesn’t care.

To his surprise, though, it doesn’t seem to be. Maybe everyone’s being more subtle about it than he expected, maybe he’s being even worse than usual at picking up cues, but it really seems like the PA kept it to herself. He feels bad for misjudging her and makes a note to apologise later. Despite himself, though, he’s somehow disappointed.

* * *

If Saionji did have someone he could talk to about this, how might it go?

‘My boyfriend’s getting married.’

_He left you for someone else?_

‘Not exactly. It’s an arranged marriage, he’s from the kind of family that does that.’

_Family loyalty can be tough._

‘Loyalty? Touga? It’s not that.’

_Then why is he going through with it?_

‘I don’t think he has any money. Not of his own. He’s got access to as much as he wants, but whatever he does for his family I don’t think they pay him. I don’t know if it’s even a real job. It can’t be, can it? He only works when he feels like it.’

_Are you worried about him?_

‘It’s not like he wants to get away. He’s not _upset_ about being married, it’s just something he’s going to do to keep living the life he does. He makes his own choices, why would I worry?’

Even if Saionji did have someone to talk to, he wouldn’t tell them the whole truth.


	2. Chapter 2

Touga looks out of the window at a garden that has definite landscaping possibilities, although not really more or less than any other house they’ve looked at. Hina, his fiancée, is looking at the vaulted ceiling of the bedroom consideringly. ‘What do you think?’ she asks.

‘It would be fine, if you like it. You’ll be spending more time here than I will,’ Touga says.

She frowns slightly. ‘Did you like the ones we looked at last week better? You seemed more interested in those.’

Last week Touga had been thinking of them as essentially stage sets, something he could decorate and furnish to show himself off to best advantage against. As places to actually live they hold less appeal.

‘There’s nothing wrong with it.’ He smiles at Hina, wanting to reassure her out of trying to engage him. ‘You should trust your own judgement. I’m more used to living in hotels.’ Hotels are an easy luxury. If he gets bored of one, he can move on, and if he gets bored of all of them he can move in with Saionji for a while. Could.

‘What about the house you grew up in?’

‘Just because I grew up there doesn’t mean it was to my taste.’ In truth he’d never quite got over how small it made him feel when he first saw it. He’d learned how to impose himself on it, how to fill its echoing spaces with his personality rather than let it fold him into its shadows, but he’d always felt he had to fight it. He hasn’t gone back there in years, and not just because it’s close to Ohtori.

It’s different for Hina, literally to the manor born. Or maybe it isn’t. She’s being sold for her parents’ advantage now, after all. ‘You’re right,’ he says, ‘I don’t like this one much. We should move on.’

He takes her arm as they walk down the stairs and thanks the estate agent on the way out. As he helps her into the car he adds, ‘You should choose, though. You’ll be living away from your parents for the first time, you don’t want to be somewhere that makes you feel lonely.’

She smiles uncertainly. ‘But you’ll be with me,’ she says.

Touga kisses her hand and goes around to get into the driver’s seat.

* * *

Touga goes to turn his key in Saionji’s lock and it doesn’t fit. For a moment it freezes him, unable to go forward because deciding how to respond to this would mean admitting it was real. Would it be embarrassing to be found still standing here by Saionji, or would the guilt and concern be useful? The flicker of calculation itself snaps him out of it, reminding him that this is both real and not insurmountable.

He rings the doorbell.

Saionji opens it cautiously and stops halfway when he sees Touga.

‘You changed your locks,’ Touga says.

‘Yes,’ Saionji agrees, looking like he wants to fold his arms, but he can’t with one hand still on the doorknob.

Touga could probably push past him, but that would give Saionji something to push back against so he smiles instead. ‘Aren’t you going to invite me in?’

‘No.’

‘I’m hurt, old friend.’

Saionji’s scowl deepens. ‘Don’t.’

‘Don’t be hurt?’ Touga slips his keys back into his pocket and steps a little closer, still smiling.

‘Don’t be such a nuisance.’ There, a whole sentence, and Saionji hasn’t closed the door yet either.

‘I just want to talk,’ Touga says.

Saionji steels himself. ‘About what?’

‘How’s kendo going? Were you teaching yesterday?’

Saionji meets Touga’s eyes, frown going from annoyed to confused. ‘You really came here to make small talk?’

‘Why not?’ They’re very close now and Saionji’s hand is loose on the doorknob. ‘It’s not as if I have anyone else.’

‘Yes, I was teaching. It didn’t go well. Every time I turned my back there were kids trying to re-enact _Star Wars_ instead of even using proper moves.’ His free hand clenches around the door frame and then falls into an open gesture, exasperation to _what can you do?_. ‘They’re a new class.’

‘At least they’re enthusiastic,’ Touga offers. ‘They could probably tell you were distracted.’

‘Who says I was distracted?’ Saionji’s voice rises, goes sharp.

Touga glances down the hallway at the doors to the other apartments. ‘Maybe we should talk inside? Your neighbours are going to wonder what’s going on.’

Saionji shifts the door a little further closed between them. ‘They wouldn’t have anything to wonder about if you’d just _leave_.’

Touga takes half a step back, a strategic concession, and keeps his eyes on Saionji’s face. He lets the silence draw out, himself awkwardly held at bay outside a house they’ve shared for years, Saionji’s ridiculous pose half-hiding behind the door. Is this scene really necessary? Surely Saionji must see the merits in doing the normal thing and inviting the person he’s talking to inside.

Saionji sighs, his face giving away defeat and Touga is already moving forward when…

…the door shuts.

Touga is left standing, for the moment as much confused as hurt by his defeat, outside a door he no longer has the key to. When he rings the doorbell again no one answers.

* * *

It’s embarrassing, Touga decides, sitting on his hotel bed halfway through a bottle of wine. He’d really thought that Saionji wouldn’t push him away, wouldn’t leave him no matter what he did. As if that’s ever been true of anyone. Even Nanami’s been known to stop talking to him for months at a time.

He picks up his phone and starts scrolling through his contacts. Nanami is talking to him at the moment, as long as he keeps things on her terms, and right now he wants to talk to someone he isn’t sleeping with. He’s not planning on telling her about the situation with Saionji, she’s strict with him these days and he can’t expect any sympathy there, but all the same he taps on her number when he finds it.

‘Hello, Kiryuu Nanami speaking,’ she says, tone already brisker now that she’s left college and started a job with their parents’ company.

‘Hello, Nanami,’ Touga says. ‘I wanted your advice on something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Buying a house.’

‘Why do you need my advice on that?’ She’s suspicious, which is somewhat fair, but while she won’t stand for manipulation she hasn’t banned pretexts that he’s aware of.

‘Maybe because you have a house.’

Nanami’s house is a mansion, but Nanami avoided any question of resemblance to their childhood home by choosing an ugly block of concrete that’s 70% windows. It’s beautiful on the inside, though, filled with elegant modern furniture and objets d’art, set off by the seasonal flower arrangements that are one of Nanami’s hobbies.

‘I do have a house,’ she says. ‘And you don’t like it.’

‘Is that why you bought it?’

‘Not everything is about you.’

‘Do you like it?’ he asks.

‘Of course I like it. Do you think I’d buy a house I didn’t like?’ Nanami huffs. ‘Are you going to buy a house you don’t like?’

‘Probably,’ says Touga. ‘I don’t like any of them.’

‘You’re never satisfied with anything. I suppose you’d like a castle…’ She trails off and for a moment, inexplicably, Touga can see a castle behind his eyes. It’s upside-down and spinning, lit up like dream, and he _wants it_. He wonders if she can see it too, if this is one of those flashes of imagery that show up in their memories to complicate an already tangled story. If it is, though, neither of them wants to know.

‘I told Hina to pick one, but she doesn’t seem to know what she wants either.’

‘She probably wants something you’ll like enough to make you stick around. But she’s not going to get that, is she?’

Everyone’s sorry for Hina. It’s not Touga’s fault he doesn’t love her. She doesn’t love him either, really, she’s just relieved to find her marriage is to someone she can want. ‘No,’ he says. ‘She’s not. So she might as well have a house she likes, at least.’

‘Have you told her that?’

‘That I don’t want to marry her? That I won’t be spending all my time with her after we’re married? Nanami, these things are understood. It would be inexcusably rude to say them to a lady.’

‘Are they?’ she asks tartly. ‘Or do you just want them to be?’

‘It’ll happen to you next,’ he snaps. ‘Do you want your future husband to tell you he’s only putting up with you for his family’s sake?’

‘I suppose if you won’t tell her directly you could always stage a conversation about how boring she is. That’s how you told me that, after all.’

‘…Nanami…’ Touga says, but he’s talking to the dial tone.

He takes a gulp of wine and flips through to newer numbers, ones he’s picked up recently and not yet used. If he can’t get any sympathy here, there are always other places to look for it.


	3. Chapter 3

Loving Touga is a lot like feeding a stray cat. He comes and goes as he pleases, turning up self-satisfied enough that you know he’s been fed elsewhere. Shutting him out doesn’t feel any better than closing the door on that cat would, either. _You’re wearing someone else’s collar now, so I can’t feed you. Go home._

The fretful anxiety Saionji feels in the following days would honestly be more appropriate if Touga was a cat. It’s not like his fiancée is going to forget to feed him, or take him to the pound because he clawed her arms up while playing. Still, he wishes he knew who she was, this girl that Touga didn’t bother to name even as he invited Saionji to see him marry her.

He makes a phone call to a number he has but hasn’t used recently.

‘Hello, Kiryuu Nanami speaking,’ she says.

‘Hello, Nanami, it’s Saionji Kyouichi.’

‘Kyouichi!’ she says, voice warming. ‘It’s good to hear from you.’

‘It’s been a while,’ he says. ‘How have you been? How’s your job?’

‘Oh, fine,’ she chirps. ‘I’m the CEO’s daughter, so even if people talk about me behind my back they don’t dare argue to my face. Even my manager tries not to boss me around.’

‘Be careful,’ he says, smiling. ‘If you take too much advantage of that, you’ll wind up like Touga.’

‘I do actually do my job,’ she says. ‘I have a contract.’

She sounds proud of it, and he wonders whether her parents didn’t want to give her one. ‘Does Touga?’ he asks.

‘No, that would mean agreeing to specific duties.’ She sighs. ‘Did you call me to talk about my brother?’

‘Sorry.’ He likes Nanami, but she’s right. He didn’t call to find out how she was. ‘I just wanted to know what sort of person he’s marrying?’

‘I don’t get involved in Touga’s relationships. Ever. It’s a rule that’s served me well for the last decade,’ Nanami says.

‘You must have met her, though… ’

‘Describing Touga’s current relationship to someone he’s just dumped is _exactly_ the kind of thing I avoid.’

‘ _I_ dumped _him_ ,’ Saionji finds himself protesting, as if that’s not a fairly pathetic attempt to differentiate himself from the multitude of people who are no longer with Touga but still can’t fully let go.

‘Well done. Now try forgetting about him.’

He doesn’t want to _forget_. Touga sprawled out across the tatami floor with his head in Saionji’s lap, still in his tailored business suit as he talks about the meeting he’s just attended, cruelly funny descriptions of the other attendees trailing off into content but exhausted silence. Touga camping with him, complaining about bugs but there anyway, happy enough to wander through dappled sun and not have anywhere particular to go or anyone to worry about impressing even if he does miss hot showers. Touga walking through a modern art display in a gallery, on the way to something that interests them more, bitingly dismissive in a way that gives Saionji more confidence in his own distaste for it, especially since Touga doesn’t hate all modern art and is just picky.

‘He called me yesterday and he didn’t even mention you’d broken up,’ Nanami continues ruthlessly. ‘He just wanted to complain about house hunting. He'll forget about you soon enough.'

‘He tried to come back,’ Saionji says. ‘I don’t think he’ll forget that fast.’

‘And you didn’t let him?’

She’s insultingly surprised. ‘He’s still getting married,’ Saionji says. ‘What’s her name, at least?’

‘What are you going to do to her?’ Nanami says.

‘ _To_ her? Nothing.’ Does Nanami think he’s going to attack her for trying to take Touga away? He’s not sixteen anymore and none of it is her fault or even her choice. ‘I just want to know who she is.’

‘Sadow Hina.’ Nanami _tsks_ into the phone. ‘She seems like a nice girl. Will that do?’

It does do, and Saionji drops the subject in favour of hearing a little more about Nanami’s job before hanging up the phone.

* * *

Saionji is not jealous.

Not in the way he might be if Hina was someone Touga was choosing for love rather than convenience. A wedding won’t give them twenty years of history, won’t give her those warm moments of trust when familiarity coaxes even Touga into dropping his guard. It won’t teach her how to see through the haze of words Touga weaves around the truth he’s not even, always, trying to hide. Saionji wouldn’t trade his past with Touga for a future with him.

Still, he can’t help but think that if the rules were different, if this were another time, even only a little way into the future, and maybe another country too, then he might have had a chance at both. His family isn’t as wealthy as Touga’s, but it’s older. He could have made a case, pressed his suit.

Maybe he’s a little jealous that this woman, this girl, who knows nothing of Touga at all, can do that when he can’t.

* * *

Saionji finds Hina on facebook, horseback riding with friends, or shopping, or just hanging out, a girl with dark hair and solemn eyes. She’s twenty-two and lives with her parents, in a mansion that is not so very different from the Kiryuu mansion.

There are a few pictures of her with Touga, looking romantic against a sunset or a rose bower. All Touga’s face shows, to Saionji, is an awareness of the camera as he gazes at his bride with carefully curated adoration. Hina’s face Saionji tries harder to read, the way those serious eyes lock on Touga’s face, trying to hold the right expression for the camera and at the same time sincerely drawn by him.

Plans for the upcoming wedding, dresses and hotels and arrangements with friends, dominate her timeline. None of that tells Saionji anything about what she thinks of the person she’s marrying and he skims it, only for it to come as a shock the first time he sees a message from Touga.

It’s just a response to an invitation, ‘I’m always free when it’s you,’ but so much of a lie that Saionji closes the window.

It’s no use. He wants to see Hina as a real person, not the image of herself she puts online, no matter if she’s more honest about it than Touga is.

* * *

Saionji still carves when he needs to think. The things he carves are amateurish, he knows, and he doesn’t keep them, but neither can he let them go right after finishing them while he’s still pleased with how they turned out. So he puts them in a drawer to keep them out of the way and every so often he sweeps all of them into a bin bag without looking at them. Right now the drawer has enough tiny carvings in it to fill a large tupperware, which is what Saionji put them in. He dresses up as if he was going to the office, in a suit and tie, sets out with directions to Sadow Hina’s house in his pocket.

Taking the subway gives him enough time to think that what he’s doing is extremely stupid. Her parents will probably open the door, she’s not going to tell a door-to-door salesman what she thinks of her fiancé, and Saionji is a useless actor. Turning around and going home would be the best thing to do.

Yet he finds himself walking up to her mansion, feeling extremely rude and intrusive, and knocking on the door.

Hina opens it, wearing a dark pink dress and more make up than she’d worn on Facebook. Her face falls when she sees him. ‘Oh, hello,’ she says.

‘Hello.’ He can’t look her in the eye and just holds out the tupperware. ‘Are you interested?’

She reaches into the tupperware, fingers sifting through politely, and when she says ‘oh’ again it sounds actually surprised. ‘These are cute.’ She’s holding a rabbit, carved curled up so it’s almost a bead. She moves it to her other hand and pulls out a sunflower. ‘How much are they?’

Saionji hadn’t thought that far ahead, he’d been prepared for her to try to get rid of him not try to buy from him, and he’s still trying to splutter out a price when a car door shuts behind him.

Hina immediately drops the beads she was holding back into the tub and looks past him, face lighting up. ‘Touga,’ she calls.

Saionji turns as well. Touga is wearing a white suit, dressed up for an evening out just as Hina is now he thinks about it. Touga’s eyes catch Saionji’s and he smiles, lighting up almost as much as Hina had although with laser sharp focus to that light, taking in the suit and tupperware at a glance. He turns that look on Hina a moment later and Saionji wonders whether she even noticed she wasn’t the one he was pleased to see.

Touga wraps his arms around Hina and presses a kiss to the side of her head, eyes seeking out Saionji’s over it. ‘It’s good to see you at the end of a long day,’ he says.

There is a mean little thrill at being addressed like that, at being in on a secret and turning someone else into the third wheel unknowingly. A purely childish _he likes me better than you_ feeling.

Touga pulls back and turns to Hina properly. ‘Who is this?’ he asks, and Saionji thinks only he can hear the laughter behind the question.

‘Just a salesman,’ Hina says. ‘His beads are cute, though. Look.’

She reaches in and sifts around until she finds one she likes, a little bird this time. Touga takes it, long fingers turning it back and forth as if he hadn’t been there when Saionji carved it, and his eyes are wickedly amused. ‘Did you want one?’ he asks.

‘Oh, maybe,’ she says.

‘Pick one you like and I’ll buy it for you.’

She sifts around until she finds the rabbit again, and hands it to Touga.

‘So, how much do you value these at?’ Touga asks. ‘It can’t be much.’

‘But they’re cute,’ Hina says, casting a glance at Saionji as if worried he might be offended. ‘And they look handmade.’

‘One hundred yen,’ Saionji mutters. Hina says something about good value for that amount, but he doesn’t really hear over the blood rushing in his ears as Touga puts a coin in his hand. It feels humiliating, in a way he hadn’t been prepared for.

‘I should go,’ he says. ‘Thank you. Enjoy your evening.’

He only just stops himself from fleeing down the huge driveway. Not knowing when they might be driving past, he manages to wait until he’s in the subway station to relax all at once and sit down on a bench with shaking legs.

After all that, after giving far too much away to Touga, what did he learn? She’s a nice girl, probably in love with Touga, and completely oblivious to the tricks he plays or the way he talks around her.

It might be the worst possible combination.


	4. Chapter 4

Once upon a time there was a small apartment with ragged tatami floors. There was never enough food and not always electricity, so the boy that lived there was cold and hungry. However, his father went without to feed him and his mother carefully patched his clothes with scraps of fabric, and he thought they loved him. It was only when they told him to grow his hair out, when his clothes became finer and less warm, when strange men were brought to see him, that he realised they had been protecting his looks and not his health.

* * *

Touga sweeps Hina into their box at the theatre and settles her, calling for a footstool when he sees she’ll need one, chivalry suddenly a role it’s fun to play again. She warms under his attention, so easy to make happy, and everything is as light and easy as the champagne he orders.

The ballet is _Swan Lake_. It’s well performed and Touga enjoys watching the lithe bodies of the ballerinas as they dance like flights of swans. He doesn’t care much for the plot with it’s betrayal, despair and suicide by drowning, but he likes the music and the choreography and the plot is easy enough to ignore in ballet.

Afterwards he steps out into air just starting to cool with the first hints of autumn, Hina warm at his side. ‘What did you think?’ he asks. ‘Did you enjoy it?’

‘It was beautiful,’ she says wistfully. ‘I wish I was more like a swan. More graceful.’

Touga laughs and pulls her tighter against him. ‘Real swans might be graceful, if you catch them at the right moment, but they’re not gentle. They’re tough, stubborn birds that don’t like anyone getting too close. You’re far too sweet to be a swan.’

That makes her smile, but there’s anxiety behind it. His distant mood lately has dented her confidence that there’s anything about her capable of holding him.

He bends down to kiss her and then whispers in her ear, ‘Shall I take you home? Or would you like to come back to my hotel room for a little while?’

It makes her blush, knowing what he’s asking, even though they’ve slept together before. ‘I’ll come back with you,’ she says, hand seeking out his and holding tight.

* * *

Touga knows what reaction to expect when Saionji opens the door to him this time. He waits until Saionji’s halfway through slamming it to wrap his fingers around the doorpost and brace himself for the hit.

‘Shit!’ Saionji pulls the door open again. ‘Is that… are they broken?’

Touga carefully lifts his fingers, already red and swelling, away from the door and wriggles them. ‘No, just bruised,’ he says. ‘But they could use some ice.’

Their eyes meet for a long moment and then Saionji moves back into his apartment. ‘Come in,’ he says.

Touga sits on a cushion at Saionji’s low table and wraps the ice pack Saionji fetches around his hand. It dulls the sharp throb of blood, turning stabbing into a bone deep ache. Saionji fetches water and painkillers too and sits down across from him. ‘Why do you want to be in here so badly?’ Saionji asks. ‘It’s not to see me. You know where I work — both places I work — and where I stop for tea afterwards as well. Why not find me somewhere I couldn’t shut you out? Or is that it? You can’t stand to be shut out of anywhere.’

Touga puts the painkillers in his mouth and drinks some water, watching Saionji try not to watch the line of his throat as he swallows. ‘This is my home,’ he says.

‘No,’ says Saionji. ‘It’s not.’

‘How would you know what makes somewhere home? Neither of us grew up with homes we wanted to be in,’ Touga retorts. He watches Saionji’s eyes soften, shadowed under thick lashes, and adds quietly, ‘You came looking for me.’

Saionji shakes his head. ‘I wasn’t expecting you to be there. I wish you hadn’t been.’

‘Not for me, then,’ Touga amends. ‘You wanted to make sure I’d be okay, even if it wasn’t with you. No one’s ever cared about that before.’

Saionji’s mouth trembles and then draws into a line. ‘Whereas you don’t care whether I’m okay at all.’

‘That’s not true,’ Touga says.

‘You’re the most selfish person I’ve ever known,’ Saionji says. ‘You don’t care how hard you’re making this, as long as it’s hard for me and not you.’

‘Do you think it isn’t hard for me?’ Touga leans forward, uninjured hand flat on the table.

‘I think you’re going to have to live with your own stupid choices,’ Saionji snaps. ‘You’re an adult! Don’t marry her if you don’t want to.’

Touga’s parents might disown him, they’d certainly cut him off. They might cut Nanami off too, simply because that’s how it had always worked, that she would be threatened if he stepped out of line. He’s not sure he’s capable of looking after himself without money smoothing his way and cushioning the sharp and broken things at the core of him. If they took it all away they could still put him back on the streets, the way they always said they could.

‘You should leave,’ Saionji adds. ‘You can take the ice pack.’

‘And what will you do, old friend, if I don’t want to leave?’

Saionji glares. ‘Do I need to call the police?’

‘On a guest who overstayed his welcome? On a member of the Kiryuu family? Good luck with that.’ Touga leans back, sweeping his hair over his shoulder. ‘I could buy this whole building if I wanted to, do you think your landlord wouldn’t sell?’

Saionji’s eyes widen and Touga can see the shock there, the fear of losing his own home. Then they narrow. ‘You could,’ Saionji says, enunciating every word carefully. ‘You could buy every place I ever move to. But even if I wind up on the streets, you won’t ever be able to buy me.’

In that moment Touga wants to break him. Buy his home, find a way to cut him off from his parents, somehow get him fired, whatever it takes to break him down and find out how long that pride survives when he really has nothing. At the same time he wants Saionji, wants the way Saionji will give freely what no one could buy from him.

Touga grabs Saionji’s wrist and jerks him across the table. ‘Don’t act so tough. Last time you had nowhere to live you hid out with a middle school girl.’

‘While you hid in your room because you’d been defeated by one,’ Saionji retorts.

There’s a sense of vertigo, memories that aren’t fully there. Why was Touga fighting a middle school girl? Why did Saionji have nowhere to go? Touga’s hand closes tighter on Saionji’s wrist, imagining Saionji in a white jacket, hair falling long down his back. Saionji tries to pull away, forcing Touga’s weight onto his injured hand and sending a shock of pain up his arm. Another image comes back to Touga, Nanami clasping his hand and crawling onto a table to reach him, making a spectacle of herself.

He lets go and stands up, leaving the ice pack where it lies. ‘All right,’ he says. ‘I’ll be seeing you, then.’


End file.
